We landed in Bucharest as we all were wearing shorts, flip
flops and T-shirts. We were just in the
hot, hot weather in Africa and now were standing in the airport with all these
Romanians glaring at us. There was snow
outside and it was negative weather.
This was the first time any of us had experienced this for the first
time since last Christmas, that is 2010.
All I could do was laugh it off.
In the past when people were staring and commenting about me, I would
fear their opinion, but not this time around.
Romania to say the least reminds me of Mount Horeb-the size, the people,
the SNOW! So, after we had changed into
our “winter” clothes of jeans, tennis shoes, and sweatshirts we caught a bus to
a train station. Here’s where things
start to get funny.
Our “layover” in the train station was close to 3
hours. 3 hours seems like nothing, but
in the freezing cold weather without real winter clothes, it’s not fun. We had received socks on the plane from
Istanbul, which turned into our mittens and gloves. Anything we had, we used our imaginations and
turned them into mock winter clothes.
Here’s where I make a complete fool of myself, which I can now laugh
off, but it took a few hours in order to do this.
About 15 minutes before the train left, my team and the
other team started to board the train on our way to Draganesti-Olt for ministry
for 3 and ½ weeks. We had approximately
1 minute for 13 of us to board. So, of
course we spread out and tried to board as quickly as possible with packs on
our backs. Now, this is a detail I
completely forgot to mention. My pack
wasn’t on my back, because I had thought I would throw my pack onto the train
really quick and jump up. My pack was in
my airporter thrown over my shoulder. As
I was boarding, the train doors started to close on me!!!! Part of my body was inside the train and the
other was, well outside with my pack.
Really the only things on my body that were stuck outside where my right
arm and well, my butt, with my pack.
There was a Romanian man right behind me that wanted to get in, so he
decided to try and help me by pushing my butt.
This was my first experience with a Romanian, a fairly interesting one
to say the least. Anyway, after about 10
seconds that seemed like minutes he decided to press a button outside of the
train car that would open up the doors and I almost fell on the ground. Meanwhile, the whole time my teammate Jamie
was watching me and trying to coach me on how to get up.
Another thing we didn’t realize was we had entered the wrong
car, just about 4 cars down from where we needed to be. So, as we pushed our way through Romanians
laughing and mocking us, we finally made it to our car to find out that our
contact, Raul, who I will be working with, said to our teammates that we had another
minute to get off and that we literally to jump off to the left. Kristen, one of the team leaders had been
told that there wasn’t a platform. Well,
about 2 hours later, we were at our site jumping off as if we were part of the
military. I fell into the snow, but some
of my other teammates literally made face-plants into the snow. To say the least, it was quite the experience
and my first one of being in my favorite country so far on the Race!
I asked the contacts a few days ago what they thought of my
team as they saw all us falling into the snow what they thought in that minute
and they said “Well, we got some crazies this month.” So, going back to Romania is going to be
great and even though I’m going to work for God, there is still crazy things
that can happen.
